Aleksandr Kartsev got a lot of attention at his native city of Vladimir where he went after the Russian Championships. Kartsev was able to become the all-around Russian champion twice in a row and the second time was while competing against the best national team gymnasts. In an interview to a local newspaper, he says that after the win, many people are contacting him online and offline but he doesn’t feel much different:
“Everything is staying the way it was. I don’t feel like I’m a hotshot now. People are writing to me on social media and I always respond kindly – why shouldn’t I respond if a person congratulates me? So, for me, everything’s the same, nothing’s changed.”
Kartsev says he tries to talk to people in order to show them how athletes are in real life:
“After all, people see us at competitions and say “Wow!”, but no one knows what a person went through to get to that competition, what preparation he went through. It’s like a cake – everyone sees a cool and pretty product but no one sees the process of its creation.”
Even though he won gold at the nationals, he would have preferred to have a cleaner competition:
“You know, this is just who I am, I’m critical of myself, I always look for flaws. Yes, I did well on the first day, and a bit worse on the second. I don’t know the reason for it. Perhaps, I was mentally tired. I won’t look for excuses. At the end, pommel horse and rings didn’t go well. But I’m still happy that I managed to do everything without falls and did every routine till the end – it’s a big plus for myself and for the national team and the coaches.”
Kartsev is now at Round Lake, preparing for the European Championships:
“It’s a very important competition for me because Euros are before the Olympic Games and I want to do my best. Not even in terms of medals but in terms of my performance in order to have higher chances of making the Olympic team”.
Kartsev competed at the 2020 Russian Championships shortly after having COVID-19 but he says the illness did not affect him much:
“I guess I was sick but I didn’t really have symptoms – I lost the sense of taste for a bit and that was it. I then had some issues with weight but overall everything was fine, so I didn’t need to recover”.
When Katsev was a kid, he wanted to be a football player:
“My dad did a lot of sports, including football and hockey. I also wanted to play football but wasn’t admitted because of my age – I was five or six years old. I was offered to start gymnastics – and [my parents] sent me there, just for a while. We were told, “Go there for a year and then come sign up for football”. But I started gymnastics and got sucked in.”
Kartsev says he currently doesn’t have much time for anything but gymnastics but he’s fine with it:
“We train a lot – twice a day while in Vladimir and three times a day during camps. My coach gives me various tasks, he’s very competent and in general he’s an awesome coach.”
“It happened so that I have few friends outside the sport – all my friends are either at the home gym or at camps where we see each other all the time. My girlfriend is also a gymnast. Of course, I’d like to see her more but it can’t be helped.”
“I have to follow a diet, especially at camps. But after coming home from camps I allow myself to get a soda once even though it’s not quite right. I also like to just hang out with friends, talk, relax, get my head clear and have a change of scenery – although it doesn’t happen often.”
Kartsev says he’s dreaming of going to the Olympics but his main goal is to be happy with his performance:
“As any athlete, I dream of going to the Olympics, and after that… It’s a sport, you understand. I’ll say it again, I’m not after medals, I just do what is required of me. The important thing is for me and my coaches to be happy with how I did.”
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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